Users of clients that are configured to access television programming, such a set-top boxes, computers, and so on, are continually exposed to an ever increasing variety of content. A user of a set-top box, for instance, may view traditional television programming obtained from a network for display on a television, as well as pay-per-view movies, video-on-demand (VOD), interactive video games, and so on.
To address the variety of content, the capabilities of clients utilized to output the content continue to change. For example, a user may utilize a client that is capable of receiving email, playing digital audio files, displaying traditional television programming, and so forth. Content providers which provide this variety of content, however, may utilize different formats, encryption algorithms, and so on, such that the content is specific to each content provider. Thus, a user that wishes to access the different types of content may need to utilize applications that are specially configured to access the content types provided by each content provider. When utilizing the various applications, however, the user may wish to switch between types of content. Therefore, the user may be forced to switch between executions of various applications, which may provide a disjointed viewing experience when accessing the variety of content. For example, a user switching between content that is provided by difference respective applications may be forced to manually switch between the applications to output the content.
Therefore, there is a continuing need to improve techniques for providing and accessing a variety of content.